"Andre Norton & Rosemary Edghill - Carolus Rex 1 - The Shadow of Albion" - читать интересную книгу автора (Norton Andre)

known of it and dispatched her henchwoman hither. Lady Roxbury struggled upright
against her pillows, groping for the tasseled cord that would summon Knoyle to her.
,,Your betrothal is a minor matter, beside the Great Work that you have left
undone. Or do you forget who you truly hold these lands of, Lady Roxbury?" Dame
Alecto's gaze was silver and ice; a formidable thing to face. But it was a formidable
woman who faced it.
 ,,I hold them of the King. I am Roxbury," the bed's occupant replied. But the
bellpull slipped unrung from her pale jeweled fingers. Whatever was afoot, she
would face it herself, and not spread gossip to the servants' hall.
,,And have you sworn no other oath?" Dame Alecto demanded, still standing at
the foot of the great bed as if she would summon Lady Roxbury from it.
It was on the tip of her ladyship's tongue to end this wearisome interview when
sudden images rose up unbidden behind her eyes: Midsummer's Eve four years ago.
She had been one-and-twenty, and Mooncoign's steward had summoned her from
Town н had brought her, over her protests, to the Sarcen Stones that lay at the edge
of her land, to show her to the Oldest People, and to take her promise that Roxbury
and Mooncoign would always do what must be done for the People and the Land.
She came back to herself to meet Dame Alecto's gaze. There in the moonlight she
had promised, but who would take care of her people and her land once she had
gone? For the first time Lady Roxbury regretted her death as more than her own
loss. It was a mystery no longer as to why Dame Alecto was here or how she had
known to come. The Oldest People had avenues of information unknown to the
human world н but even they could not change the appointed time of one's dying.
,,If you can tell me how I may fulfill that oath, I shall be indebted to you," Lady
Roxbury said dryly.
,,You must summon another to take your place," Dame Alecto answered.
She moved from the foot of the bed to its side, to fling back the heavy velvet
coverlet and draw Lady Roxbury from her deathbed. She tottered and would have
fallen without Dame Alecto's strong support The room spun and reeled about
Mooncoign's mistress, and the young Marchioness trembled as if in the grip of an
arctic chill. The edges of her vision darkened and curled like the edges of a painting
thrown upon a fire to burn. She barely noticed as Dame Alecto half-led, half-carried
her to a chair before the fire and seated her in it, wrapping her in her heavy winter
chamber-robe, its silk velvet folds still smelling faintly of cedar and lavender from its
months in the clothes press.
,,Mooncoign is not in my gift," Lady Roxbury protested. Dame Alecto had
poured out a cup of the cordial that Dr. Falconer had left her, now Lady Roxbury
held it to her lips and breathed in the strong scents of brandy and laudanum. She
sipped at it and felt the pain in her chest recede.
,,Nevertheless, you may choose your successor н if you dare. Look into the fire,"
Dame Alecto commanded, ,,and tell me what you see."
Gypsy foolishness, Lady Roxbury thought scornfully, but spellbound by the force
of the older woman's personality, made no overt demurral. She stared obediently
into the pale translucent flames on the hearth. At last she was warm, no, more than
warm, hot, burning, a creature of fire н
,,Creature of fire, this charge I lay н " There were others in the room, standing
about them in a circle, chanting, their voices blending into the thin music of the
names н
 ,,Tell me what you see," Dame Alecto repeated.
The fire shimmered before Lady Roxbury's eyes, and to her feverish mind the